Observations of a Land-owning Hunter

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A new event is coming to town. First time ever. It’s brought to you by The Mule Deer Foundation in support of the MDF National Endowment Fund (MDF NEF). The fund provides a perpetual funding source for MDF mule deer conservation.

The event, A Conversation in the Vineyards, will take place over a three-day period. May 2, 2019 is arrival day. Out of town guests will be hosted at the Best Western Hotel, Vineyard Inn on South Front Road starting at 6:00 PM with a welcome cocktail offering.

Friday will be a tour and wine tasting day. Tours will be half day and will include a trip to Morgan Territory and a very special trophy room, an Altamont wind turbine farm tour, a barbecue and ranch tour out Mines Road and a wildflower/butterfly tour in the southern Alameda County hills.

Of course there will be wine tasting at Livermore Valley wineries.

At 5:00 PM Friday evening, the guests will share their experiences while eating and drinking wine at the McGrail’s Vineyard and Winery on Greenville Road.

On Saturday there will be a major all-day tour of San Francisco PUC watershed lands, East Bay Regional Park District land and also the Fletcher Ranch conservation lands. This tour will run from 8:30 AM until 3:00 PM.

Of course there will also be wine tasting at Livermore Valley wineries.

The Saturday evening event will be a full-scale dinner and hosted bar at Poppy Ridge Golf Course where once again the guests can share their experiences from the tours and also learn about how to support the MDF NEF.

For room reservations call Best Western Vineyard in at (925)456-4522 and mention The Mule Deer Foundation room block.

Guess I’m getting a bit old. Can’t burn the candle at both ends and get away with it.

The Livermore Native Sons Big Buck Contest took place on Saturday and I didn’t want to miss it. That left Friday for a goose hunt and Sunday to pick up decoys at the Kerry Club.

Got to Webb Tract about 10:30 AM and checked the single blind I wanted to hunt. It was not flooded, which made me happy. But, the area around the blind was dense smart weed which made for tough paddling for Lola. We made it work.

The blind had not been hunted all season, so I figured the ducks wouldn’t be too shy of it. Although there we’re many ducks around, I did get chances at ring-necks twice and pintail once. Missed the first couple chances, but knocked down a ring-neck later on.

Specs were pretty active. After the first couple hours of hot sun, the birds began to work. Seemed like everything was going wrong. Hit the first ring-neck, but he sailed out of sight. Then I hit one of the sprig and it sailed away. I went after it almost certain that Lola would find it, but she did not. Could be that it never actually went down.

Lola was struggling to make it through the thick smart weed, so I actually assisted her by holding her up by her dog vest.

Specs kept coming around and finally I shot at a small group thinking there were well within range. Again a bird was hit and it sailed out of sight. I decided to calm down and wait for a shot I couldn’t miss – if there was such a thing.

Finally a spec came over at about 45 yards and my shot brought it down. Lola swam right past the goose and I had to make the retrieve. She was not having a good day.

At least she turned around and made it back to the blind – with my assistance.

As the afternoon was coming to an end, I checked the time. There was about ten minutes left before the end of shooting time when another spec came over in range and I dumped it. After four misses, I had killed birds on my last three attempts.

After picking up my decoys, cousin Wes appeared in the Yamaha Rhino and gave Lola and I a ride. I felt better after finally connecting. We barbecued specklebellies from my previous hunt for dinner. They were fantastic.

The Big Buck Contest at Basso’s Barn was a lot of fun. The out-of-state bucks were amazing with Jeff Zuniga winning with an Arizona Strip buck that was humongous. Clayton Koopmann won the A-Zone contest and my Inyo buck nipped Rick Escover’s nice blacktail in the “All-Cal” category.

Met my Kerry Club hunting partner, Tom Billingsley, at the K-Club about nine on Sunday and we hunted for about two hours. Knocked down a couple teal and then hauled decoys.

I won the half-mile race from our blind back to the truck. Tom did have a slight handicap. He was dragging all the decoys in my decoy sled.

Guess that’s story for 2018/19 hunting.

Now it’s time to start thinking about the plan for next season and doing some fundraising for MDF.

At that time I read it as a hunter, looking specifically for information that would be of value to me as a hunter. I shared the hunter’s lifestyle with Aldo Leopold and wanted to learn more about his philosophy.

I gleaned from the book what I wanted to find and that was it. For years I’ve considered re-reading the book and kept it on my book shelf. It is in very good condition, except for my recent dog ears.

This time, I read this book as a conservationist and it had much more meaning. Now I have more in common with Aldo Leopold (especially at his age at the time he wrote the book) than I did 32 years ago.

Now I understand why his book was so full of meaning and why it is appropriately called a “classic of conservation” by many people.

Leopold’s views on wilderness, land use and recreation are expressed in great detail in the book. He was spot on.

Son-in-law, Brett, and I stopped to shoot some clays on the way to the Kerry Club Friday afternoon. Got warmed up with hits and misses.

The barbecued teal and beef filet was great Friday evening. Good selection of wine and nice appetizers. Lots of birds around camp.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, but we had a late draw and knew that we’d be lucky to get good action.

No wind to slight breeze. The sunrise was amazing.

The first duck of the day was a drake green-wing that disappeared into a tule patch about 200 yards from the blind. Lola made an amazing find and I polished it off with a few follow-up shots. Yes, this was a five-shot (expensive) bird.

We decided to go with the take-no-prisoners approach and passed nothing up. Finished with a mixed bag. Here’s Brett with our seven birds. He killed at least four of them, maybe more.

Made it back to camp in time to have a burger cooked by master chef, John Staats. Thanks John.

Wasn’t sure what to expect on Wednesday, but dinner at Woolgrowers on Tuesday night was good and the company was even better. Whenever you get a half-dozen duck hunters together you know what to expect.

The wind was brisk and the early teal worked the blind nicely. Hit the first teal I shot at. Got a little cocky as Lola went out to retrieve. As she approached, the bird got up and flew away. Hmmmm…what next.

We had a five or six ducks in the first hour. Then things slowed down.

Finally I knocked down another teal. Hit the water in the same spot where the flyaway duck had hit. He was alive so this time I climbed from the blind to back up Lola. I’m not so agile any more so I struggled to remove myself from the pit and reached for a shell to reload as I straightened.

Before I could put the shell in the barrel of my double, the bird sprang into the air and caught the wind. A marsh hawk gave chase, but the little duck was gone.

Two in one day.

Anyway, we had a good time. Lola got a workout. We finished up about 11:00. Had eleven ducks, uh, I mean ten. Buffleheads don’t count. I won’t say who shot it except that it wasn’t me. Made a nice shot though.

Bob snapped this shot of Lola and I on a retrieve that lasted about 20 minutes. She’s still recovering.

Forgot to take any photos while hunting so Rob snapped one at the Ferry. The three specs I shot were old birds and large.

Brother, Rob, and I returned to the site of our first duck club where we still find very good hunting for ducks, geese and pheasant.

It was approximately 40 years ago that we saw an advertisement in the Sportsman’s Corner of the SF Chronicle Sporting Green. Saturday was not unlike many trips to Webb. In Byron there was a sense that fog could be forming.

On Cyprus Road, just shy of Bethel Island, fog was visible. On Jersey Island Road, the fog thickened and by False River, visibility was down to about 100 yards.

But, it didn’t last long. By the time I’d driven across the island, watched geese, unloaded my gear, changed clothes and had a bite to eat, the fog was on its way out. Didn’t matter. I was happy to be surrounded by thousands of geese and ducks knowing that something good was about to happen.

Rob showed up shortly after me and we took turns hauling decoys out to our respective blinds. He chose a water blind with the idea of hunting sprig and I chose a semi-dry field in search of specs.

The goose hunt was good with some minor exceptions. Once ready in the blind, with my decoys exactly the way I like them, it wasn’t 15 minutes before I heard specs calling from my left. They came into sight about 150 yards out in the dwindling fog. Right away they spotted the white-front goose shell decoys I’d placed along the edge of the field.

I called softly, they were close and turned away towards the decoys. Slowing, they put their feet down and helicoptered downward. This was too good.

When about 10 feet over the decoys, they came to their senses and flared off the plastic birds. I called again and they turned towards me flying low, about 30 feet in the air. They were about to pass less than 30 yards from me when I stood and fired….whoops….I mean almost fired. My semi-auto clicked. Yes, a mechanical malfunction.

There were better moments to follow and despite more malfunctions, I did manage to bring down a spec before the afternoon was over and also bagged a couple in the morning. Both hunts were exciting and three specs is enough to motivate me to go back again before the season is out.

On Sunday, three more small groups of specs worked the decoys and call – passing by in range. I managed to bring two more birds. Lola made great recoveries on all three birds. By recovery I mean she chased them down and held them at bay. She might have retrieved them, but at 12 I’m giving her a break from heavy loads.

Without her I might have lost any of the three birds that went down as they were all very lively.

I’ve got an appointment to get my shotgun professionally cleaned on Friday.

This adventurous great blue heron was floating False River towards the ocean on a boat made of water hyacinth. Photographed him from the Ferry on the way home.